Our detailed published procedures can be found on our website. We've set out below a simple summary of the process. However, please refer to our detailed procedures for full information.
If your complaint is about an on demand service provided by the BBC (i.e. the BBC iPlayer), you may need to complain to the BBC in the first instance. If you are dissatisfied with the final response you receive from the BBC, you can refer your complaint to Ofcom.
If you have a complaint about a programme on a regulated video on demand programme service, please contact the service provider. You an access a list of providers and their contact details on our website.
If you are dissatisfied with the response you receive, or you can’t find the video on demand service provider on the list, you can complain to Ofcom using our on demand programme service complaint form.
Ofcom assesses each complaint carefully to see if our rules may have been broken. You can read more about our rules about how we deal with complaints on our website.
If we decide the complaint doesn't raise issues warranting further investigation, we'll close the complaint and publish a record of this in our Broadcast and on-demand bulletin. The bulletin is published every fortnight and is available on our website.
If we decide to investigate, we’ll include the case in a list of our new investigations, published in the Broadcast and On Demand Bulletin.
An investigation is a formal process which can take some time depending on the complexity of the issues involved.
Ofcom can also launch investigations in the absence of a complaint.
We publish the results of our investigations in our Broadcast and On Demand Bulletin. We might judge that an issue is in breach, resolved or not in breach of our rules. You can explore the archive of Broadcast and On Demand Bulletins.
We hold these decisions on service providers’ compliance records. If a service provider breaks the rules repeatedly, or in a way we consider to be serious, Ofcom has the legal powers to impose sanctions on them. Possible sanctions include a substantial fine or suspending an on demand programme service. Read our previous sanctions decisions.